A season of inconsistent judging

Being a proud Australian, I first want to congratulate Australia's first ever ice dance medalists at an international competition. Danielle Obrien and Gregory Merriman won the bronze medal at the Mentor Nestle Nesquik Torun Cup in Poland. Fantastic job.

Belinda Noonan, a respected person in Australian Figure skating circles wrote an article about her take on the new technical minimum scores. Long story short, she is critical of how these high TCS' are affecting ice dance. She discusses issues from how these standards are leaving skaters and their struggling federations in the dust. Not only that, she even discusses about the great inconsistency in scoring and calling of levels. She also looks at the other side of the argument and the lack of funding in this expensive sport.

Thanks for the post. Could these dancers look any cuter in their circus get-ups?

I agree with the writer that the qualifying scores are too high. This will change the character of the world championsahips. The previous deal was, every ISU member has the right to send its national champion to Worlds. Even if they don't win a prize, it gives them something to build on and something to aim for in the future.

The World minimum entry requirements for Ice Dance was set so high that Olympic Ice Dance Champions, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir were unable to achieve the 29 point Short Dance score at the prestigious Skate Canada Grand Prix last October, even though they won the event.

According to http://www.flutzingaround.com/2012/1...igibility.html on 15 Now 2012 at Worlds could be up to 23 couples of 15 countries.
After 15 Now 2012 some other courles could earn technical score at Senior B's. Also may at Euro and 4CC.
So at Worlds most probably will be more than 20 couples. It is enough to have 20 couples qualified to Free Dance.

More serious is situation for 4CC - up to 17 entries of 8 countries om 15 Now 2012.

At Euro no doubt will be enough entries at Ice Dance, or even too much. May be, technical score for Euro will be made higher next season.

Quite a few teams in ice dance achieved the TES for 4CC's & Euros who had not done so before at the International Trophy of Lyon this past week, including 2 teams who compete for Japan, Oi/Mizutani and Hirai/Delasuncio.

Hurtado/Diaz, Mysliveckova/Brown achieved the World TES in both programs.

However, this is a demonstration of inconsistent technical calling, unfortunately.

The author of piece is correct, especially since such a small group of people (the three person technical panel) determines the whole set of career opportunities for skaters.

A worse thing is that there are so few convenient/lower price opportunities for non-European skaters to achieve these minimum TES scores. There is only one Senior B in North America this year (Salt Lake at the beginning of the Season). Did Asia even have a Senior B anywhere this year? Europe has quite a few.

My understanding is that there are two purposes to the minimum scores rule. One is to establish that everyone who competes at Worlds has established senior-level competence, and the other reason is to keep the numbers of competitors manageable both logistically and financially. So letting in 10 or more Japanese and American ladies wouldn't solve the problem -- unless they set the minimums so high that few other countries would have anyone who qualified.

And it would also contradict the principle that federations, not individual skaters, are ISU members to be served by the ISU championships. If skaters were to qualify on individual merit alone, not by nationality, then the whole structure of the the way the sport is governed would need to be significantly different.

The other thing I don't like about using a minimum TES is that it measures only the elements and not the quality of the basic skating. I wish there were some way to consider the Skating Skills component as well, even though it is inherently more subjective. At least GOEs do count.

My understanding is that there are two purposes to the minimum scores rule. One is to establish that everyone who competes at Worlds has established senior-level competence,...

To me, the qualifying scores seem ridiculously high to serve to establish minimum senior level competence. According to the quote repeated in post 2 on this thread, Virtue and Moir were not minimally competent in the short dance at Skate Canada.

True, Virtue and Moir made a big mistake in this particular performance. But Cappellini and Lanotte were also below minimum competency. So were Riazanova and Tkachenko, Hubbell and Donohue, Gilles and Poirier, Caron and Jones, and Ralph and Hill.

IMHO a "minimum competency" requirement should be something like half of what the top skaters can get, not so high the the defending World and Olympic champions have to go to another event and hope to get more generous technical and judging panels in order to qualify.

The other reason for qualifying scores -- to save money by restricting the field -- well, if the ISU is really as broke as they are letting on, then we have to cut them some slack here. One thing they could do is tell member federations, you can send your champion to worlds but you have to pay all their expenses. Don't look to us.

The other reason for qualifying scores -- to save money by restricting the field -- well, if the ISU is really as broke as they are letting on, then we have to cut them some slack here. One thing they could do is tell member federations, you can send your champion to worlds but you have to pay all their expenses. Don't look to us.

I like that. That way at least each federation can decide, and if the federation's too broke, maybe the skaters can pay for the trip themselves (or maybe their sponsors can)

For your amusement.
There is a youtube channel of all competitors at the Mentor Nestle Nesquik Torun Cup (try saying that ten times fast).
Here it is https://www.youtube.com/user/mnntc13
-Take a look at the Ice Dance event
1st UKR (Heekin-Caneedy/Dun) 2nd JPN (Reeds) 3rd AUS (O'brien/Merriman)